


happiness is a hot drink on a cold day

by Astrarian



Series: Writer's Month, August 2020 [15]
Category: Wiedźmin | The Witcher (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Coffee Shops & Cafés, Alternate Universe - Surfers, F/F, Writer's Month 2020
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-15
Updated: 2020-08-15
Packaged: 2021-03-06 01:47:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,580
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25905334
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Astrarian/pseuds/Astrarian
Summary: If you’re not willing to endure the cold for the best waves, how can you call yourself a real surfer? When the waves are just as good, how is it even possible that you’re not just as in love with the cold water as the warm?Or: an AU in which Ciri goes surfing in Kaer Trolde, and calls into the beachside café afterwards, and finds that a very old friend is the barista, and they flirt.(Writer's month 2020 - Day 15: coffee shop AU)
Relationships: Cirilla Fiona Elen Riannon/Cerys an Craite
Series: Writer's Month, August 2020 [15]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1861909
Comments: 2
Kudos: 13
Collections: Writer's Month 2020





	happiness is a hot drink on a cold day

As the daylight fades rapidly, turning the world grey, Ciri hurries up the beach to the car park. At her van she props her surfboard up so it’ll keep dripping and drops down to grope for her keys on the suspension coil. She needlessly scares herself when she doesn’t find them immediately, because clearly the van hasn’t been stolen—it’s just that her half-frozen fingers always struggle with any task after she’s done with the water for the day, let alone tasks that she has to do by touch alone.

She finds the keys after a bit more groping, punches the unlock button and flings the back door open. She jumps inside the van to get out of the brisk breeze, flicking on a handy torch rather than wasting time with the main light, and begins the annoyingly familiar process of peeling wet neoprene off her cold body with numb hands.

There are definitely disadvantages to cold-water surfing, and the teeth-chattering nature of changing clothes at the end of the day is a huge one. There’s no competition to barely even needing clothes in waters much further south, when even late at night the slight chill can be easily stopped by putting on a t-shirt or simply toweling oneself dry.

But she often asks those tanned lanky kids whether they really love surfing. When they reply that of course they do, she asks them whether they’ve ever surfed in Kovir or Skellige. More often than not, the kids laugh. Cool as a cucumber, languid and deadly serious, Ciri tells them to get back to her when they’ve experienced Kaer Trolde’s renowned swells in winter. And more often than not, she grins to herself as those kids stare at her in bemusement.

If you’re not willing to endure the cold for the best waves, how can you call yourself a real surfer? When the waves are just as good, how is it even possible that you’re not just as in love with the cold water as the warm?

The labour of taking off a wetsuit is over quickly enough—she’s well practised—and Ciri changes briskly into thick, dry clothes (no zips, on account of her predictable chilled fingers). She decides to stow her surfboard inside the van for now and deal with it later, once she’s warm.

There’s a café down a wide gravel path a hundred metres or so away from the car park, which doesn’t close until five. Ciri knows the opening hours not just because she checked beforehand but because she remembers it from holidays spent running to it across this very carpark, bare feet sandy from her adventures on the beach. Sometimes she was alone, more often she was with friends—erstwhile friends, she thinks with a nostalgic pang—but she was always desperate for fruit juice or hot chocolate, depending on the season.

Her feet are so leathery these days that they’re even more suited to running on tarmac. She’s also got a little more sense these days, though. Slightly more sense, anyway. She’d like to keep her adventures going for as long as possible, and it’s much more likely if she doesn’t do silly things like that. So she pulls on a pair of sandals before jumping out and stashing her board.

The sign on the kerb isn’t the one that she remembers, but it’s just as weather-beaten as any sign in Kaer Trolde is. She jogs quickly down the path to the welcoming light of the café, shining out in the dusk. Her stomach rumbles, and there’s not even a choice in her mind: she’s getting a deluxe hot chocolate, definitely. She might even get two.

The bell jangles as she opens the door, and it sends a little spark of joyful familiarity through her chest.

“Be right out!” calls a woman’s voice from the back, unseen. That too sends a spark through Ciri.

It’s the accent. Ciri loves it. She could listen to the Skelligan accent forever, both out of enjoyment and amusement, because it’s a lot of fun to try to understand drunken, slurring Skelligans. Impossible, but fun. 

As she looks around, a barrage of half-forgotten memories of her old friends flashes through her mind: arguing with Hjalmar an Craite over the last ice cream that they both wanted, helping Crach put plasters over scrapes on Cerys’s shins before Cerys returned the favour, watching the rain lash against the café windows in a sudden downpour that drove everyone off the beach, shrieking and soaked. It feels like a million years ago.

Ciri came here last year in winter too, remembering the same things, making an attempt at creating new memories to replace those melancholic ones. But they didn’t really stick, and this year she wants to try to reconnect with the old memories instead of trying to make new ones.

She walks up to the counter, rubbing her cold fingers together inside her pockets, and idly scans the menu even though she’s already made her drink choice.

“Sorry about that,” says the barista, coming towards the counter.

When Ciri looks at the barista, the shock that courses through her is ten times stronger than the little sparks she felt earlier. Because—

“Ciri?” the barista squawks, faltering in her step.

“Cerys!” Ciri answers without thinking, shocked. Thrilled.

Cerys an Craite, the subject of many nostalgic memories. Ciri was sure she hadn’t forgotten her old friend’s red hair and fierce countenance, but she was wrong, so wrong, because Cerys’s hair is so vivid that Ciri is near-blinded by it, staring.

_Stop staring…_

For a moment, it’s awkward. Ciri knows she’s gawking but she can’t stop, and she doesn’t know what to say. It’s a minor comfort that Cerys is clearly just as blind-sided as Ciri, and that Cerys didn’t—or couldn’t—hide that she recognised Ciri, but the missing years swell heavily in the air between them.

Then Cerys recovers her composure. “Well, it’s been a long time since I’ve seen you around our way, hasn’t it?” she says with a grin, putting her hands on shapely hips and looking Ciri up and down. “What brings ye here?”

Ciri fixes her hanging jaw and smiles helplessly back at Cerys. “The waves. What else?”

“What else indeed,” Cerys murmurs, and Ciri finds herself blushing. “You’ve been all over, haven’t you? Seen your picture in _Carve_ a couple times.”

Ciri blushes even more, unable to say anything more complicated than a surprisingly shaky, “You have?”

Cerys just nods. Then she shakes her head, apparently at herself. “Here I am, forgetting the most important question. And what can I get ye? To drink?”

“You don’t have to do that,” Ciri says, automatically, because who asks their friends to serve them?

Cerys snorts lightly. “Oh aye? You think I’m wearing this apron and standing back here because I like the look?”

Ciri shrugs, realising the absurdity of her own comment, and laughs a little helplessly. “I—no, maybe not. But maybe yes. I mean, it looks good on you.”

She didn’t mean to let that slip out. Cerys cocks her head, obviously noticing, and Ciri presses on quickly. “How would I know?”

Cerys’s expression glints with humour. “Because I’ve just told ye.”

“Oh, do you work here?” Ciri teases, enjoying Cerys’s bright smile even though she cringes inwardly at what is definitely her worst attempt at flirting in quite some time.

“So how have ye been, Ciri?” Cerys asks.

It’s been years. Years and years of hardship and grief, feeling like she was lost at sea and learning to forge her own way through the waves. She doesn’t know if she could ever explain them.

Sometimes, Ciri would wonder if her life had ever been simple. The only possible moments that fitted were those holidays spent here in Kaer Trolde with Clan an Craite. She remembers the two of them curled up in sleeping bags once, whispering preadolescent gossip into one another’s ears well into the night. Ciri liked Hjalmar, and Cerys liked… someone. Ciri can’t remember who. But she can remember the girlish thrill of it.

“I’ve been all right,” Ciri says. “And it would be great to tell you a bit more with a hot chocolate, please.”

Cerys, nodding, heads towards the machine. “Developed a sweet tooth, or just looking for those calories?” she asks. “You spend all day out on the water? Didn’t recognise you out there.”

“I got here after lunch,” Ciri says. “And I’m not surprised, it’s hard to identify anyone at this distance.” She gesticulates aimlessly at the windows and the darkening water beyond.

“You’re pretty recognisable.”

“Not when I’m wearing a hood,” Ciri says, tousling her own damp hair. “I’m no amateur.”

She actually winks before she’s thought better of it. Cerys, though, gives her a sharp grin that makes Ciri smirk back at her. Again, it happens before she’s really thought about it, and it’s a really nice feeling, one Ciri hasn’t felt for a while.

“If you say so,” Cerys says, her voice practically purring, accent wrapping around the words in a way that Ciri’s never heard. “Lemme sort this and then you can tell me however much you want to.”

“You might regret that,” Ciri warns lightly.

Cerys’s smile turns softer, less predatory. “Nah, I doubt it,” she says. “Lucky for me it ain’t busy at this time o’day.”

Even though Ciri doesn’t have her hot chocolate yet, warmth blooms inside her. “Lucky for us,” she agrees.


End file.
